No 6 The ParadeSimon Pratt

Southern Water cut a trench less than a metre square in the Parade,
outside No. 6 (Boots), on 22nd March 1993 in order to deal with a mains
leak. Most of the sides consisted of modern backfill, but the southern,
beneath 0.7 m. of modern surfaces and brick rubble, contained a series
of light pebble and gravel metallings, separated by layers of gritty
silt, containing many fragments of Roman tile, painted plaster and
opus signinum. The metallings became slightly heavier beneath
1.0 m. below the modern road surface and appeared to continue down
beyond the bottom of the 1.4 m. deep trench. Only a cursory inspection
was possible in the few minutes that the hole was accessible for
examination, and no pottery or bones were apparent. The metallings lay
approximately 12 metres from the corner of Mercery Lane and the Parade,
immediately to the south of an east-west Roman wall recorded by the
Trust during the digging of a sewer tunnel in 1982 (Bennett 1987, 100,
fig 33 (wall 18)).

St Andrew's Church stood on the site from at least the twelfth
century until its removal in the eighteenth century (Urry 1967, 210,
243, maps 1b5 & 2b6), at which time the brick rubble may have been
deposited. The metallings therefore cannot be medieval in date though it
is possible that they are Anglo Saxon (especially the lighter upper
layers). The presence of much Roman building material could be
consistent with a purely Anglo Saxon date range but, given the thickness
and number of deposits, it seems likelier that the lower deposits at
least were earlier.

The surfaces might have represented a Roman courtyard (though a
courtyard sequence was seen north of the east-west wall reported by
Bennett) but could also be interpreted as street metallings. More work
in the Parade would be needed before a meaningful interpretation of this
evidence could be attempted.